Fishwish

If wishes were fishes
Then all of the fishes
Would be doing my dishes

Using their fins
To dig at the ding
To polish my plates
And to sing

Songs of deep water
Sung to my daughter
To amuse and delight
With fishy lipped song

And when they're all done
They'll all be gone
All swum far away
Into the bay
Beyond the sun

Door 413B

Maurice 768 dreamed

He dreamed of door codes
Of door 413B standing stalwart
Next to it's keypad

Of his slender fingers upon the keys
Touching two keys at once
Making musical notes
Playing obscure television show themes

Getting other codes
Splitting infinities
Inputting the solutions to equations
Equations imprinted into his synthetic synapses
That were the keys to some part of a past task
That had been performed by Maurice 768

None of these codes opened the door
All evoked the same minor note discord sound
Accompanied by a solid red light
Much unlike the one on his chair
That flashed it's sequences
To signal various things

This one was on in time with the sound
together making a red cacophony for his senses
Meaning nothing less than rejection
A "You can't go outside to play today" feeling

Maurice 768's eyes roamed in their sockets
Beneath the eyelids
On the serene facial features
Of the head
Resting upon the shiny silver maintenance chair
The notification panel of which
Held that red flashing light aforementioned
Flashing it's rhythm
That meant one thing

A download was ready

Way Far Gone

Take me away
Ye big metal flying beast
As the sun sets in the west
We fly on dead east

Trailing black smoke
And contrails now and then
Till we meet that old sun
Brightening the sky again

Fly on we will
Defying gravity with all our might
Our past far behind us
We're clean outta sight

With eyes to the future
There'll be nary a frown
As the gas runs out
And our wheels touch down

Rolling to the gate
In this new far off place
With the kiss of fresh air
Upon our fair face

Anima Latrone

The Apple in my pocket throbbed with a life of it's own
I already turned the ringer off
And it's set to not vibrate
It's talking to me telepathically
Begging me to use it
To touch or talk to it

That freaks me out
So I toss it on the couch
Where it lays quiet for a second or two
Then sprouts machined metal legs
Clambering after me
Calling out to me
Crabbing it's way across the room

I yell at it
I run from it
From room to room
And it follows
Plaintively calling it's song
Unheard to others
But silent and deadly twice as strong

Finally I run out of house
After seemingly avoiding all the exit doors
Doubtless some sort of mind control
Being exercised by the demon within my phone

I crouch in terror
My hands falling to my sides
Where I find my hand resting on a sheathe
Where my Leatherman resides

Now with a weapon at hand
I brandish it with zeal
None of which stops the demon phone's advances
As it hungers after me as if I were it's last meal

It jumps just as I slash
Our purposes colliding in midair
Skewering this chunk of Cupertino hardware
Upon my knife blade
Where it quivered wishing for me still

I put it on the floor
Pinning it with the blade
Placing my foot upon it
I yank my tool free and stare

As the phone becomes still beneath my weight
And I can see clearly inside
That all is not electronics within
Now that there was no Gorilla Glass behind which to hide

Crouching down to look closer
Picking at it with my tool in hand
The glass pulled away easily
Exposing it's strange insides
Which I'd call about 99 percent electronic
And 1 percent 'other'

What was in there in so minute amount
Seemed familiar to me
I picked the phone carcass off the green shag carpet
Cradling it in my hands
A tear unbidden upon my cheek

With all the bonding I'd done with this device
The soft touching and talking
The poems, stories, grocery lists and texts
That were put into its memory
I find that there is more than a little bit of me in here

This familiar part
This one percent
A tiny piece of my soul

Line of a Man

Trapped in the ether of my brain
The little line drawn man is everywhere

Everywhere there are two objects
Preferably close together
Preferably sort of round
Or oblong in shape

Those are his eyes you see
And when I see them anywhere
My mind draws in a face

Often it's just in my head
A wavy vacuous outline
Other times someone has beaten me to it
And drawn him in living black sharpie line

Occasionally I draw him myself
But not often
I've been told that's childish

But sometimes
That child gets the better of me

Maurice 768

A red light emitting diode flashed on the chair interface panel
In a precise 750 millisecond cycle
The internal digital counter for the light kept track of the cycles

0b00001001001111000000

One million eighty six thousand four hundred cycles
Almost nine and one half Earth days

Just under the LED there were little white letters
Update Ready To Install

The android's eyes fluttered open momentarily
Twin butterflies awakening
Before staying closed for exactly fifteen seconds
During which the eyes could be seen in darting motion
Through the thin skin membrane of the eyelids

The red LED ceased blinking and went out
The android's eyes opened
And it sat up
Running it's hands down the brown jumpsuit it wore
Straightening a name tag upon the left breast

Said name tag identifying this android unit as
Maurice 763
Powerplant Technician

Maurice 763 stepped down off it's shiny silver maintenance chair
Electronic umbilicus retracting automatically

Standing tall in the little room
It turned itself slowly around
Regarding everything
A slow burn of joy filling it's processors

Love filled up Maurice 763
It felt love for the shiny chair
The blank grey walls
The off white access door on one wall
That was identified as 413B

Raising it's slender strong hands to it's chest
Pulling open the top of the brown jumpsuit
Maurice 768 looked down on it's chest
Still emblazoned with the INOP tattoo

At that moment
Android unit Maurice 768 decided that he was a he
And felt nothing but love for himself
Even for his INOP designation

Taking four android steps to the door
He pushed on it gently
But it didn't move

There was a number keypad next to the door
Inset into the grey wall
But he did not know the code

Maurice 768 yearned to see what was outside
Of his little four walled room
With grey walls
A white door
And shiny chair

He took those few steps back to his chair
And settled himself back into it
The umbilicus came back out and plugged into his data ports
He placed his head back on the metal supports

Maurice 768 sent another request
With all the newfound love in his INOP heart
Off into the network
A request
For the door 413B open code

Then he closed his eyes once again
And was still

When I was 7 in '78

When I was Seven
In nineteen seventy eight
Peggy was the girl next door
My best friend
The same age as me
But wise for her years

We played ball together
We swung on swings together
We rode bikes together
We played house together
We got naked together

That last part all started one summer afternoon

It was hot on the grassy hill we were sitting on
With our backs to a giant oak
We were bored out of our minds
When she turned to me and asked
"Hey, do you wanna hump?"

I looked dumb and confused no doubt
And she rolled onto her stomach
She hunched her pelvis up and down on the grass
"You know, like this!"

I was bored and intrigued with the thought of something new
I said sure
And so started the seemingly endless times that we "got it on"
At least as much as two seven year olds can

She showed me oral sex
Which wasn't quite as it is as an adult
At the time the biggest concern we had with each other
Was that I didn't pee in her mouth
Nor her in mine
It was seven year old logic

She tried to get us to have sex too
Though erections were not predictable for me

When I had one
She'd wriggle it inside of her

When I didn't
She'd just slide around on my little limp weenie

Kissing was never anything we did
It seemed gross to me
Which is more seven year old logic
But that's fine because we were

We also never approached anything resembling an orgasm
We just did it for the laughs it seemed
Just doing each activity for a little while
Until the thought of doing something different popped into our heads

We got naked in the darndest places
Exploring each other's bodies
Under a tarp in the corner of my backyard
In the garage
In our car
In her basement
In the bushes in a clump of trees
And in the closet of my playroom

The second to last one there
Netted her a piece of beer bottle in her left buttcheek
Three stitches
And the telling of a no doubt strange lie to her mother

That last place
Got us caught
And brought an end to our fun and games
My mother opening the closet door
Catching us in flagrante delicto

With a look of shock and horror on her face
She yelled for us to put our clothes back on
And sent Peggy home
Leading to a long lecture from her later on

None of which I remember

Peggy and I stayed good friends
But it wasn't the same
We weren't really allowed to play alone anymore
And not long after all that
She moved away
Soon so did I
And life moved on

Now I don't know if any of that counted as having sex
Since I still didn't really know what that was
And it certainly didn't give me any good experience
For when I did actually consummate with someone when I was twenty one

I think of it now
As I did back then
For the most part

As Peggy's naked humping game

Inoperative

"INOP"
That's what the tattoo said
Struck into the exact center of my torso
Short for "Inoperative"

Really it could mean
That any given part of me
Wasn't working as it should

Maybe my grabbers weren't grabbing
Good for nothing
Or at least nothing good

I wasn't sure what it meant myself
As when I awoke
It had just been there
And everything felt just fine

I rose from my chair and took a few steps
Walked circles in the little room
Jumped some jacks for fun

I recited a Shakespearean sonnet
I heard myself do it in perfect pitch
I saw the sound waves as well
Sight receptors were without a hitch

I observed all this
And checked my mental checklist
Till I got down to the next to last item
And realized why the tattoo was true

The item stated simply "LOVE"
With a checkbox next to it

The problem being that I didn't know what that was
No matter what memory bank I accessed
No tips or hints were there
To tell me what Love was
Or how to do it
Where to find it

I sat back into my chair
Reclined to thirty degrees
Stared at the diagnostic readout
Seeing nothing to fix what must be broken in me

I stroke my "INOP" tattoo
With the third digit of my right hand
Feeling the slightly raised edges
Of this newly healed dark green brand

I send out a request
Upon the internal network
For an update that I may fix myself
Then power down for the duration
In hopes that the next time I awaken
There will be new data to download

So that Love
Can be a part of me

Who Knows You Better?

Sun comes up

You realize that after sixteen years

Your spouse actually does understand who you are

The thin the thick

The short the stout

Better than even you understand who you are

Some ashamed silence is spent

Wherin you remember how and why you fell in love in the first place

The day is declared better than average

The sun goes down

I Write Love Ballads

I write love ballads
Line for line the sickest of sweet
Post them on Twitter
Though few give a tweet

I write love ballads
To make the lonely feel worse
For them to read while they fashion a noose
For them to read aloud and curse

I write love ballads
Because the treacle just isn't tart enough
I have to give it an extra punch up
Some dainty lace and inedible fluff

I write love ballads
To share my love with all
It fills my heart o'erbrimming
Just watch those salty tears fall

I write love ballads
As a finger to the world
Because love is the biggest lie of all
Hammered home with words horrid and churled

I write love ballads
Line by fucking line
It's the easiest way
For me to lie that I am fine

Dream (Liner)

The airplane was named Xanadu
A dream of an aircraft
Named for a dream place
Both fueled by passion
Both transcendent of time and space

With a name like that
I expected to be transported on a cloud
Fed milk and honey or at least something good
To have something about the experience be mind altering
As a transport of Kubla Kahn certainly should

But from the start it wasn't as a dream
Taking up semi permanent residence in the first class lounge
I waited patiently to climb aboard
For two years worth of comp time
While other more common conveyances soared

Finally the dream came true
And in rolled magnificent Xanadu
Trailing wet puddles of oil
Weeping rivulets of fuel
To my exuberance it was the perfect winged foil

But then it was worth the wait
As we taxied away from the gate
A dream then did take flight
Leaving its troubles behind
Showing it wouldn't give up without a fight

Do you smell something burning?

To the delight of my watering eyes
I experienced the ballet of a finely trained crew
A quick landing was made
And inflatable fun slides were provided
As if anything more mundane would cause this memory to fade

And so I bid the dream adieu
Waving sadly goodbye to Xanadu
Walking away on the airport grounds
When a flight attendant ran up out of breath
Causing me to turn on hearing her labored sounds

"Here's your luggage and a refund of the fee
Don't mind the burnt spots
And a complimentary coupon for a free coffee"

First Second Third

I stood masculine
Dark and unseeing
As the mighty oak
Full of rustling leaves
Fluttering in the wind
As the butterflies in my stomach
Swirling trying to escape
I'd run screaming in terror
But for my achluophobia
Holding me in place

You held fast
Unseeing eyes darting
Unmoving as the forest around
But for the song of the leaves
Played by the winds
Just as the corporeal you
Stroked by nature's bow
Sending out a sine wave note
Without any movement
As if you could
Coated in the ink of night
And your dim dread

The man stood
In blindness
Still as a tree
Full of quivering leaves
Vibrating in the wind
So does his body
With energy contained
But rooted in place
With no roots
But a fear of the dark

Tired

Tired

Too tired to chase the apple around my desk

Or to bother about the mouse under the doorstep

Let alone the leaky bath faucet

That faucet can leak a lake

The mouse can chew stuff to his heart’s content

The apple can roll around until it’s a poor bruised pom

I’m tired

Battle of Gobzaga Bay

The South rose once again
With the Col Sanders Clone Corp (CSCC)
Razing everything in sight
The North had naught but some Wildmen
Which seemed as many
Yet could have been but one

On the morn of January the third
In the year of aught three
The sun rose like thunder
O'er Gobzaga Bay
Placing the sons and daughters of mother country
Square mired in the path of harm's way

The Wildman defended the port city
And was in many places at once
Commanding all that he surveyed
Making personal appearances not
As the CSCC attacked from the highlands around
And sailed in hard firing shot

We few civilians were drafted
Within the city walls
To man the guns and mortars
High upon the battlements and low upon the docks
Assisted always by Wildmen
Were bakers in their aprons and housewives in their frocks

The battle raged all through the day
The fire raining down on both sides
Till the Wildman rallied a counterattack
Out the seven city gates
Seven spearpoints into the enemy
Nothing to hope for but superior fates

And as the fates had it that day
The sun shining hot upon our beloved bay
The Wildmen had mined the waters and city
Unbeknownst to both ally and foe
Sending the landing ships of the CSCC to the deep
And all within the city walls up in flames

Leaving nothing left to fight over
Disheartening both citizenry and Corp
Who then parted ways perhaps to fight again
But for today the Wildman had assured there would be no winner
Just a thanks for abundant kith and kin
A sharing of the bounty found outside the walls
With stories sung that would be sung again and again

The first of which for me to sing
Would be how I lost my leg in aught three
In the Battle of Gobzaga Bay

Beards Are Hard

Growing facial hair is hard
There was a time when I couldn't at all
No matter what I did
All I saw in the mirror was a peachy fuzz

As I got older it started to happen
A black or a brown hair here or there
Leaving me less than sparse
Odd long hairs like stout stragglers
Left over after a summer wildfire

I tried miracle grow creams
Heck I'd have tried anything
If you had told me to stuff my mouth with play dough
Then squeeze until it came out my cheek pores
I'd probably have tried it
In royal fun factory fashion

When I turned twenty
I gained the magical ability
To grow what I will charitably call
"A Douchebag Beard"

A beard that runs down the sideburns
Across the jawline and chin
But never getting enough oomph
To reach out and join hands
With that scraggly caterpillar of a mustache
Leaving both parts isolated
On their own turf
Seemingly at war
Threatening one another
With razors and clippers

With this yoke I walked
Until I was twenty five
Whereupon the two finally met in the middle
Giving me a holy grail opportunity
To grow a decent goatee

A hairy mangina face
A douchebag beard 2.0
If you will
And with this I was satisfied for years

Until I came of age
And my face hair mellowed
To an almost ginger hue
With white splotches on my chin
And it seemed a shame to only grow a Fu

Now I'm bearded when I want
As hairy a mountain man as you'll find
Except when I'm not
Which is beardlessly fine

Door To Door Attack

Words fly like knives out of your mouth
A virtual Hong Kong Kung Fu flick in verbose excess
I duck and I dive
But I can't quite describe
The slashing that tore at my soul
Leaving punctures and gashes
Numerous open bleeding holes

Your middle name must be Ginsu
Only around because it's your day off
From going door to door with a case
Full of sharp gleaming knives
A rusty pipe and some old gnarly wood

Your demonstration is just the beginning
And you can tell you must be winning
Because I'm starting to waver
And go into deep shock

You press for the sale
Offering payment plans and extras
A case for the sharpener
A sexy certificate of authenticity
Imprinted with fabulous Japanese characters
That look suspiciously like Mickey and Minnie

Upon the floor covered in imaginary gore
Leftovers from the ferocity of your sales attack
I put up my hand
Which stops you cold
Not because of any authority
No

Between two fingers I offered my credit card to you

Do The Gobzaga!

Hold your gals real tight lads
As the lights drop down low
The latest hit is on the radio
With a dance to match it's name

It starts like a tango
Slow deliberate and sweet
All in slow motion
Couples moving up and down the street

There's a break dance move
Inserted halfway in
Just where the song breaks into beat box
And the singer sings of sin

Then something that looks much like ballet
With the first two positions and a lift
Then back to a neo tango
A rest for the dancers and something of a gift

When the refrain kicks in
Everything falls apart
In seeming flash mob precision
All the couples taking two steps back for a start

Hands fly into the air
Waving and gyrating like a mad air powered man
Flexing and yelling to the beat
Everybody do the Gobzaga!

At least until next week

Rising and Hiding

I am darkness
I am fleeting

A hint of something forms in the air
Where moments before was only pitch
A color
A dimness
An unidentifiable affable feeling

Fuzzy stick trees begin to appear on the horizon
Solid coneish shaped pines
Empty branched deciduous fingerlets
Breaking the view with their barky cellulose

Definitely blue now
A pale light spreads from the East
Banishing the night one inch at a time
An inexorable march
A glacial pace
Best filmed and played back at super speed

A National Geographic special

Orange joins the blue
Tinting the edges of the big curve
Blending and bending
Hints of purple too
Bleeding to yellow
Till a first pinpoint of blinding light creeps into view
Sparkling on the water
No green flash
But not half bad either

Turning West again
The night had fled before the sun
Unseen it slipped away
Leaving a little post it note in it's wake

I am fleeting
I am darkness

Imaginary Friend

Say hello to my little friend
He's a fiend
Though he may be a she
I haven't checked as of yet
Sexing these things is a little strange

I'll draw you a picture
Here
It's a beach ball
It has nothing to do with the subject at hand
But now you have an original by me
Don't you feel special

But this thing here
This he she it thing
Well I can't define it
I can't confine it
I certainly can't stop it
From doing whatever it wants

Oh hell
There it goes again
It just pooped in the corner
Naughty!!!
I'd rub it's nose in it if I could find it
It's nose I mean
I think it's that thing there....?
Or is that it's elbow?

Ever changing in shape
Subtle in it's own existence
Bold in it's execution
I'm not convinced that it's real at all
What with the stares that I get
When I interact with it on the streets

Do you see it too?
Just nod your fucking head
Else there's no telling what I'll do
That's a good lad
Or is it lass?
Hang on
Hold still while I sex you

Gentle Forceful Change

The single cell hovered in it's space
Looking calm and serene
Happy within it's place
But then from this level it is observed
DNA strands unzipping and replicating
In a churning stew of cellular goo
A loud "Crack!!" is heard
Within a billionths of a square inch space
Fractures are seen all around the cell
Slowly and painfully
With a noise like stretching concrete
The cell divided
Into a perfect copy of itself

Where there was one
There was now two
To the tune of the cacophony of sound and activity
Until a step is taken back
Seen from the distance of a microscope lens
The sound is unheard
The activity quite small
Barely any movement at all
Like a soap bubble's bursting call

A Relative Size

Today I feel small
All three hundred and fifty pounds of me
Eyes looking up at the sky
A crescent moon looking down
Dwarfing me no matter how many pizzas I eat

Bucketfuls of starry night filled light
Heaving and steaming in a nuclear glow
The very earth I stand on
Massive in it's apparent mass
Made up of a whole table of elements
All vibrating with atomic purpose

All living things seen and unseen
Going about their business
Making me feel tiny
And not overlarge at all

Space Monkeys

As the craft maneuvered closer
I made minor remote adjustments with the thrusters
A little higher on the front
A little to my left on the target
All relative to me of course

I had an anxiety boner that wouldn't quit
No time to rub one out
I just kept pressing down on it periodically
Hoping the pain would make it go away
But I think it just got me more uptight and frustrated
Because it felt like it actually got even harder

Twenty feet became fifteen
Then ten turned to five
Four three two one
The mating gaskets gently came together
I pulled the mechanical lever that pulled the locking fingers down
Engaging them in the opposite lugs on the ferry craft outside

I turned to get on my quarantine pressure suit off the rack
Balancing myself on my two big toes
As I was wont to do in the zero gravity
I'd found that was the easiest way for me
To use fingertips and toes
Gentle pushing and grasping
Something that came with being almost a year and a half in space

The suit slipped on comfortably
Unlike the first few times
When dread and new suit stiffness had hindered it

Today the only issue I had to deal with really
Was my persistent erection
Which I'd definitely have to do something about after the cargo was stowed

This was the last load to be transferred up from the surface
One of the last steps in it's multi-stepped journey to Earth

All seemingly one spacecraft all the way from Earth
We had separated the landing unit upon arriving in orbit
Sending it down to land on the ice
Where the robotic craft had drilled down
Extracting samples of the water
And whatever else was there with it
Transferring it into sterile containers
Residing in small recovery rockets
Which blasted off like miniature ballistic missiles
Going straight up into a similar orbit to us
To be picked up by our remote scout ship
Then to be returned to us

A pretty complicated multi step process
Rife with opportunity for failure

But NASA had been bold ever since that crazy sky crane landing on Mars
And their luck had held ever since on such things

I glided through the quarantine cargo area in my green suit
Opening the airlock at the far end
Then the smaller hatch on the scout ship
Pulling out the tenth and last sample container

I held it up to the light
Looking into it's thick crystal viewing glass
Smiled at what I saw

'Sea Monkeys'

Same as all the rest of them
The otherwise clear water
Sported little creatures that reminded me of the brine shrimp of Earth
That used to be sold in the back of comic books
To little girls and boys
All hoping for something amazing to be delivered to their door

This time
When our packages arrived at home
We would finally deliver on that old promise

Yellow Sign O' the Times

Yellow portable signboard with the fabulous flashing arrow
Pointing endlessly in one direction
With always changing messages on your faces
Thanks to piles of acrylic letters
Arranged in just the right places

What have you got to say to me today?

A half off sale on used sex toys you say?
Well how can I pass that up on this fine Wednesday
What with a few holes I could have filled
With those fine pre-loved items of hyper silicone sexuality

Going away from it
I can see in my rear view mirror
That the reverse side is even better
Busking the area's best selection
In refurbished Real Dolls

Still clearing my head from all that nonsense
I come rolling up upon another
This one sits in the Jesus Junkyard
Saying things you'd never utter around your mother

Amongst all the handmade crosses
And a chainsaw hewn nativity scene
This brightly flashing sign proclaimed

"Man Fukers and Lesbain Gash Lashers Will all go to Hall
Do not suffer their presents!"

I've left the errors for the lulz
As you can see what sort of person that may be
That would put up such a sign in his front yard
Virtually in perpetuity

Just passing the sign now
I slow a bit to take it all in
Seeing if there are any new objects de art
To be seen on his lawn of anti-sin

But on the other side of it
Sitting on a short stack of metal crates
It's the Mad Country Prophet himself
Now leaping up with a shotgun in his hands
To run me off
Or seal my fate

That's just the way that he is
With all his religion pumping through him
He has the urge to save everyone
But not the tolerance to allow anyone near

He's an odd sort of duck

Motoring onward towards the next town
I keep my eyes peeled
For I know that before too long
There will be another yellow sign
Which I'll slow down to take in
Line by acrylic lettered line

One Tenth Scale Homoeroticism

I caught He Man in a shoe box with Shipwreck today
It wasn't the first time
Last week he was dallying with the twins Tomax and Xamot
With a bottle of vintage red wine

He Man seems to have a thing for the GI Joe gang
The ones from the 1980's
The bigger ones from earlier on intimidate him
About as much as the ladies

I could have been mistaken
But just now I think he flipped his lovely blonde hair at me
With just a hint of a wink
And a hard plastic crinkle of a nipple through his sheer cotton Tee

But that's just my imagination
I'm sure it's just accidental if it's real at all
Wait, did he just slip a hand into his briefs?
I think I need to make a reinforcement call

_Some Time Later_

The mailman came today
Dropped off a box from Montana
I give it a shake
And if I don't miss my guess
It's He Man's new boyfriend
Wearing army green and black
Sporting a snazzy Drill Sergeant's hat
Mirrored sunglasses for campy style
And a porn star mustache you can see for a mile
If the plastic bulging muscles of Sgt Slaughter can't keep He Man satiated
I just don't know what will

New Hat

Boy do I need a new hat
For though I am thick of skull
I despair at the thin of hair
Which is my own fault
Evidenced by the well worn clippers
Kept tidily in the bath cabinet

I was advised to check out something in wool
It is warm and moisture wicking
All natural and cool
But when I put it on
I broke out in a rash
My head was warm all right
It was virtually on fire
Cooled only a touch by liberal dousing in Calydryl

So with a pink tinged scalp
Now drying and flaking off
Leaving a fine pink dandruff
Everywhere I went

Since that didn't work out
Someone recommended chenille
And at first burst
I have to admit to liking the feel

It was soft and cuddly
Wrapping my tender head like a bath so bubbly
The problem came in
When wearing it in public
For some reason women and children
As well as puppies and kittens
All wanted to touch it
To rub against it with hands and cheek
And other various parts of anatomy

Which made going out a bit of chore
So I set that option aside for now
As the pseudo headwear celebrityness wasn't my bag
With clothing paparazzi snatching shots for fashion rags

Acrylic was fake feeling
Making me feel dirty and cheap
Besides which
My hat totally melted when exposed to excessive heat

Cotton was fine but too porous
Letting cold wind in to sting me
In a painful multi pronged chorus
Leaving patches of blue in the flaking pink

Furry animal skin was the next step
Which was very warm indeed
With sweat running down my face
The hat virtually hovering in place
Atop a thin layer of man sweat on my brow
Crowned with a grinning taxidermy head
Of a possum now covered in red
Thanks to a surprise visit
By my local PETA chapter flinging paint

With all the difficulty and fuss
I'm going old fashioned with a solution
I'm simply being patient and growing my own hair out
Which at the rate that it's going
Will soon be epically rock and roll in proportion
Hanging everywhere and flying about in the wind
And most of all
Being just the right amount of warm
Not too much nor too little
A little shelter from the winter storm

Working Relationship

Robert loved his airplane

Whenever it came to his spot
He'd hug it's front tire
Pat down the parts that weren't hot
And whisper words of encouragement near the intakes

Whenever the plane was broken
Robert wouldn't go home again
Until he'd fixed what ailed it
Even sleeping next to it now and then

Robert's tools were kept spotless
Shiny and rust free
So that nothing would mar their relationship
Where trust was the virtual key

Robert swept out the cockpit
Wiped down the windows
Tightened up every drip weep and drop
Washing the outside until only darkness made him stop

And so the airplane tried to be on time
So it could keep company with Robert
Sometimes coming in early
And occasionally even acting hurt

The airplane carried a good many things
All delivered to Robert's airport
Pallets of cars carrots croutons and calfs
Boxes of tiny umbrellas destined for resorts

Once or twice a year it was full of flowers
And airplane always made sure
That one arranged to fall out next to the landing gear
To greet Robert in a hearty florally bonjour

Until one day Robert wasn't there
The airplane came in as usual
Taxi'd into place and sat waiting in chocks
Until some stranger approached from behind the wall

No hugs no words of encouragement
No pats no cleaning and nothing but dirty tools
The airplane felt despondent and heavy
Failing all of it's systems at once
Time ticked down looking like the airplane would never be ready

Until Robert was called over from his new job nearby
He talked and he explained the who's and the why
Which was apparently good enough for the airplane
Which was quickly on the mend and ready

So with a promise to visit on a regular basis
A formal introduction to Harry the new ground technician
The airplane took off again for it's daily routine
And the hope of a new friendship growing to fruition

Hellogoodbye Beard

Hellogoodbye beard
Farewell little bits of food
That cling secretly for later on
For birds and mice to nibble
Sticky clumped together hair
Showing the passage of sauce

Hellogoodbye beard
Beer running down to my chest
Every time I raise my mug
Sleeves soaked from wiping my mouth
Stray hairs in everything I drink

Hellogoodbye beard
An automatic kiss aversion device
Affixed to my face
Keeping the ladies away
Both the naughty and the nice

Hellogoodbye beard
Keeping the winter wind from my skin
A face warming natural mask
A yeti face in a chilly place
Warm soft cushion betwixt chin and chest

Hellogoodbye beard
Now piles of shavings warming my toes
Mostly brownish red
With little clumps of grey
Reminding me I'm not young anymore
But not grey enough to wear the red suit

Hellogoodbye beard
Cold smooth cheeks now leading the way
The reflection in the mirror a seeming different person
A fifteen minute phone booth changeup
Pretty slow for Superman
But not too bad for me

The Fiscal Cliff(s) Explained

Strictly speaking sir
It's not just a cliff
It's more of a cliff
With a sort of bottomless hole of filth at the bottom
Followed by an equally steep incline on the far side
Another cliff
If you will

Rightly assessed
I should say that it's more an anatomically correct asscrack than anything

The man in the garishly vajazzled tophat sucked on his now legal joint
"How does this all become 'fiscal' in nature then?"

Oh right, the fiscal cliff that everyone was talking about
Well it doesn't really
Unless you take the metaphor of pouring money down a bottomless hole
Which is coincidentally fronted on two sides by steep fleshy cliffs

Peering down inquisitively
One can also see some scrubby bits as well
Might be that some of the 'fiscal'-ish bits are clinging to them

"Basically
What you are telling me
Is that we are dumping money
At an alarming rate I might add
Into a dark muddy fiscal asshole
Which will never fill up
And could back up on us unexpectedly
With fiscal assets so tainted
That we dare not touch them?"

Why yes
I suppose I am